Long boot times using SCSI

[MatthiasvW]

I'm running a P3-500 system running 98SE and have a Diamond Fireport 40 for my SCSI controller. Lately, it's been taking forever to finish booting. Right before it gets into Windows, the system stops, the hard drive stops, and the three SCSI drives I have (Yamaha 4616S, Pioneer 303S, Plextor 40X) just go nuts. The drive lights flash on and off like they're being searched for a disk, and this continues for a good 4-5 minutes before the rest of the system comes back to live and Windows finishes loading (which takes about 5 seconds). Any ideas? I've taken the CD-ROM out of my boot order in the BIOS, and I've also turned off the search for boot CD option in the controller itself. It's a pain the butt, and if you have any ideas, I'd really appreciate it.

Matt

 

[mastertech01]

It certainly shouldnt be scanning the bus nearly that long.. only two things I can think of.. improper termination, or device manager is loaded with duplicates and you need to boot to safe mode to remove them all. It could think there are dozens of drives to seek if there are tons of duplicates in there. And make sure there is no media in the drives..that will shorten their buss scan.

 

[Smbu]

Have you tried updating the bios for the scsi card?
My Adaptec 2940UW card used to take a few seconds to recognize my Plextor 40x max and Plextor 12/10/32S drives, but it would hang for 30 seconds, or more when trying to detect my external zip 100 drive(unless I had a disk inserted), but after I updated my bios(I went from like 1.1 to 2.7) it detects my zip drive as fast as my other drives.

I'm pretty sure it shouldn't take that long to detect those drives. I've also used an Adaptec 2940AU card in my system and it also detects my 3 scsi drives very quickly.

 

[MatthiasvW]

Termination should be fine, but I'll doublecheck it when I'm moving the system into my new Antec SX830 (yay) this week. This really just started happening recently, and I haven't tinkered with the drives in a few months. Only possibility I can think of is that I added an ATA/100 card in November. Otherwise, Diamond hasn't released a BIOS for this beast since... oh, their webpage says July 1998.

Cripes, maybe it's time for a new card. Some of those Tekram deals look fairly attractive...

 

[mastertech01]

Diamond quit making these long ago, so you will not likely see bios updates for them unless some individual makes one.. They seem to be pretty good for most UW applications and down.

 

[MatthiasvW]

Yeah, I agree that they're good for UW and down, but it's just being a pain in my rear right now. So, do you like the Tekram cards?

I swear, with the way things are going, it's enough to made a guy go IDE again.

 

[MereMortal]

I couldn't tell from your post, but are you booting off an IDE drive or a SCSI one? If the boot drive is not connected to the adapter, can't you disable the bios on the adapter? It might be searching for a boot drive.

 

[mastertech01]

I really didnt care for my Tekram cards, I like Adaptec.. never have problems with them.

 

[MatthiasvW]

I am booting off an IDE drive, on my ATA-100 controller.

And I can believe the Adaptec cards are decent, for that kind of money, but sheesh... I'm supposed to be buying a new car here. I think upgrades are going to be sidelined for a bit.

 

[mastertech01]

Its common to find Adaptec2940UW on the for sale forum for 40 bucks to 60 bucks.. hardly a budget breaker. if you are only using CD drives a 2940U can be had for as little as 25 bucks..